chapter 19: Inner Demons
In the Sand village, "Good work, Baki" the Kazekage said.
"Unfortunately, Kankuro did not make it to the finals, but the other two did, Kazegage-sama" Baki said.
"There is no need to worry, Kankuro will still be present and Gaara was the only one we desperately needed to reach the finals anyways" the Kazekage said. "From now on, I presume our deal with the Sound is strong?"
"Yes, here are the plans form the sound" Baki said, handing the scroll Kabuto had given him to the guards, who then passed it to the Kazekage.
"I see, then we will be counting on you four that day" said the Kakzekage.
"But Kazekage-sama, with only the four of us? Can we not place troops around the Fire country and call it an exercise?" argued Baki.
"Konoha isn't stupid" explained one of the guards. "Their ANBU is already on the move and if we do that, we will draw too much attention. As expected, the forces we can bring into the village are limited. That is why we have Gaara and the others."
With that, the Kazekage ordered Baki to go and prepare. The Sand was preparing to make their move.
*Flashback*
"The Sand will join the Sound in attacking the Leaf on the third day of the chunin exams" explained Baki to his three students. "This is an S-rank mission, please understand the importance."
"But why a war?!" Temari cried. "After all the time and effort we put forth creating the alliance…to break that, many will die."
"In the end, shinobi are tools of war" explained Baki. "The alliance itself threatened our existence. You genin probably don't know it, but the Wind country's stupid ministers have used the alliance to forcibly weaken the military strength of the Hidden Sand. Because of the alliance, and the ministers fully trusting the Leaf, he sent out clients to them and drastically cut our funding. When the head is stupid, we suffer. For our village to keep up, we had to raise the abilities of each of our shinobi. That's why shinobi like you were created…Gaara."
Gaara remained silent.
"Fearing the weakening of Suna, the Kazekage formed an alliance with the Sound to teach the stupid minister the danger the country is in" said Baki. "To measure the recovery of the Sand village, we will destroy the Leaf. If more time is allowed to pass, the Leaf will become too powerful and out of our reach. This mission, we are counting on you, Gaara." Gaara nodded.
*End Flashback*
Naruto arrived at the hot springs early the next day to begin his training. Unfortunately, the Pervy Sage was not there.
"Yo, Naruto" said Jiraiya, walking up to their little training ground, about an hour late.
"Where were you?! You're almost as bad as Kakashi-sensei!" shouted Naruto.
"I had business to take care of, Naruto" explained Jiraiya with a regretful look in your eyes. "I'm sorry to say but your training ends here. There is something urgent that requires my attention."
"Yeah yeah. I'm sure you just found a new hot spring to go look at girls or something perverted like that" said Naruto.
"It's not that kid, this thing that needs my attention has something to do with…" Jiraiya bent down to whisper into Naruto's ear. "Orochimaru."
"What? Really? What is going on?" asked Naruto.
"I don't really know. That's why I need to investigate" explained Jiraiya.
"Then what about my training?" asked a concerned Naruto.
"I'm sorry, but the remaining week and a half you are going to have to manage on your own. I have faith you can become the fourth master of this technique" said Jiraiya. "Also, about 'Fuzzball', be very careful when using his chakra. A small burst every now and then might be okay, but don't overdo it unless it is absolutely necessary. There are people even in this village who would try to exploit you and that power for their own gain, and his power is not one that should be taken lightly. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, I guess" replied Naruto, crossing his arms. Looks like he wouldn't be going full Fox cloak on Neji's ass during the finals.
"Naruto, please promise me you'll be careful with using that chakra" said Jiraiya.
"Alright, I promise you. And don't worry, I won't go back on my word, believe it!" claimed Naruto. With that, Jiraiya left to check out what required his attention.
Since there was no use staying at the hot springs any longer, Naruto figured he would grab a quick bowl of ramen then move over to training ground 7 to continue.
Sakura was walking down the street of Konoha, holding a wrapped daffodil in her hand. Today was the day she got off from doing missions. Normally, she would have used this day to stalk Sasuke or do something that was related towards her getting closer to Sasuke, or even anything Sasuke related. However, she had not seen or heard of him in the past weeks, nor had she seen Kakashi-sensei around. Her first assumption was that Kakashi had taken Sasuke away for training, which was the correct assumption.
Ahead of her, Sakura caught an orange-clad ninja coming out of a ramen shop. "Naruto!" she shouted. It had been over a week at least since she saw one of her teammates, and even Naruto was a welcomed sight.
"Oh, Sakura? What are you doing here?" asked the ramen-stuffed blonde.
"I'm on my way to the hospital to see Lee" she replied.
"Bushy Brows? How is he doing?" asked Naruto.
"You should come and see him. I'm sure he would like to wish you good luck or something before your match with Neji" said Sakura. Inside, Naruto's spirits lowered slightly. Despite this training, he knew if he didn't have his new jutsu ready for the finals, that there would be a good chance he wouldn't beat Neji. After experiencing the difficulty of the third step, even he was beginning to have doubts.
Still, Naruto did want to see how Bushy Brows was doing and he wouldn't refuse this time with Sakura. When they got to the hospital, they also ran into Shikamaru, who had just finished visiting Chouji. Apparently, Chouji had eaten too much and was in the hospital with a strained stomach. Both Naruto and Sakura got a good laugh out of this. Shikamaru decided that it wouldn't be too much trouble to see Lee as he was also a little curious as to how the spandex-wearing ninja was.
They opened the door to find something they had not expected to see. There was sand hovering around Lee and a red-headed boy standing beside him, ready to kill.
"Ahh!" screamed Sakura as Shikamaru had to act quickly, restraining Gaara with his shadow possession jutsu.
Naruto punched Gaara in the cheek as Shikamaru felt the blow as well due to his jutsut. "Bastard! What are you doing to Bushy Brows?!"
"I was trying to kill him!" replied Gaara with a cold and sadistic tone to his voice.
"W-what?!" the three Leaf ninja stuttered in unison. Shikamaru noticed something was off. "How can he stay so calm?" thought the lazy genius. "Why is there a need to do that? You won your fight, do you have some personal grudge against him?"
"I have no grudge. I just simply want to kill him" Gaara replied, sending horrified looks onto the Leaf ninja's faces.
"Damn raccoon. Can't he think of anything else besides mindless violence? Hell, if it wasn't for him, you humans might have never found out about us" said Kurama. Naruto heard the demon, but couldn't respond just now between what Gaara had said and what Kurama had just said.
"W-what the hell? You Bastard!" shouted Naruto.
"You had a messed up childhood, how self-centered can you be?" asked Shikamaru. 'I'm getting this weird chill. If he acts up, Naruto and I may not be able to stop him. What to do?'
"If you get in my way, I'll kill you to!" Gaara said unleashing a wave of killing intent through the room.
"What?! Go ahead and try!" shouted Naruto, preparing himself for a fight.
"Hey, Naruto, stop it!" ordered Shikamaru. Sakura, who was standing there couldn't move as the killing intent took over her body's control.
"Kit, pineapple hair is right. Now is not the time or place to be picking fights with other demons, even if they only have ONE tail. We don't want anyone dying in the crossfire" warned Kurama.
'I'll try to bluff him' Shikamaru thought. "We know you are strong, but so are we. We didn't show you our 'special moves' in the preliminaries. Plus its 2 on 1. You have a disadvantage. If you leave now, we'll let it go."
"I'll say it one more time. Get out of my way, or I'll kill you to" replied Gaara.
"I won't be killed by the likes of you!" Naruto shouted.
"Naruto, shh" Shikamaru said, trying to calm his blonde counterpart down. "His strength is like a monster, don't you understand?"
"Heh, monster you say? Well guess what, I HAVE a real monster inside of me" claimed Naruto, referring to Kurama. Sakura knew what he was referring to, but Shikamaru saw that as a bluff.
"A monster, eh?" replied Gaara. "Like you said, I had a messed up childhood. I was born into this world by taking the life of the woman I would have called my mother. To become the ultimate shinobi, my father attached the incarceration of sand through me using ninjutsu…I was born a monster. The being refered to as the Shukaku, it was sealed into an old kettle. It's the living spirit of an old hidden sand priest."
"A possession jutsu that allows one to be possessed before birth…to go that far is crazy" replied Shikamaru.
"Crazy…Yep, sounds like that bastard of a raccoon" replied Kurama.
"Heh, what a strange expression of love. A parent doing something like that" said Shikamaru.
"Love?" replied Gaara. "Don't judge me with your measuring stick. Family…you want to know what kind of connection that is to me?"
Gaara now had the Leaf genin's full attention. "It's simply pieces of meat connected to me through murderous intend and hatred. By sacrificing my mother's life, I was grated as the village's ultimate masterpiece as the Kazekage's son" Gaara told them. "My father taught me the secrets of the shinobi. I was spoiled and allowed to do as I pleased. I thought that was love…until that incident occurred."
"What incident?!" Sakura asked, regaining her ability to talk.
Gaara let an evil, sadistic grin slip onto his face. "For the last 6 years, my father has tried countless times to kill me!"
Naruto, Sakura, and Shikamaru were in shock. "But you said your father spoiled you…what do you mean?"
"A being too strong can become an existence of fear" replied Gaara. "Born through jutsu, my spirit was unstable. It seems the idiots in my village finally realized there was a problem…To my father, I was the village's trump card, but I was also very dangerous. It seems that by the time I was 6, I was too dangerous. As the village's dangerous tool, I was handled with care. To them, I am simply an object of the past they want to see disappear. The why do I exist? Why am I alive? When I thought about this, I could find no answer. But, as you live, you need a reason, otherwise it's the same as being dead."
"What's he talking about?" asked Shikamaru. He looked over to see Naruto had frozen.
'I can understand' thought Naruto. 'He's the same as me'.
"I came to this conclusion. I exist to kill every single being besides myself. I finally found relief from the fear of death, never knowing when someone would try to kill me" stated Gaara. "By continually killing assassins, I understood the reason to continue living. Fighting only for yourself, living while loving only yourself…If you think that everyone else simply exists to allow you to experience that feeling, nothing is better than that in the world. As long as there are people in this world for me to kill, and continue to feel the joy of living, my existence will not vanish."
'What is this guy? This is really bad' thought Shikamaru.
"I was alone…I couldn't find a reason to live and was in pain…but because my teacher, Iruka-sensei, and my team and comrades, and even you, Kurama, I finally experienced what it meant to be alive' thought Naruto. 'But he continued to be alone and experienced living through killing other. How could a guy like this exist?'
"Now you know why that raccoon is insane. He's completely psychotic, who only wants to cause death and destruction. If he cannot do it, then he manipulates his host into doing it for him" answered Kurama.
"Now, I've had enough of you…Die!" shouted Gaara as he sent his sand out towards the three. Kurama was readying himself to flood Naruto with demonic chakra while Shikamaru froze and all Sakura could do was scream.
""That's enough!" Gai said, entering the room. "The finals are in a few days, so don't get antsy. Or do you want to stay here, starting today."
Gaara clutched his head in obvious mental pain. "I'll definitely kill you guys, just wait!" he threatened, leaving the hospital.
The three Leaf genin knew they had just avoided something that could have gotten very bad.
It was now late in the evening and Naruto had made his way to the training ground. The upcoming match between him and Neji was approaching and after seeing what Neji did to the Cloud ninja, Karui, he was beginning to become unnerved. The previous encounter with Gaara only served to make matters worse. He worked on his Rasengan, only for it to fail. However, to say that progress wasn't being made was wrong. Before, the balloon would instantly burst when he tried to contain the chakra, but now he was able to hold it for a second or two before the chakra began to destabilize.
Late at night, Naruto was blown back when one of his balloons burst rather violently. It was then that he looked up to se Hinata standing in front of him. Realizing that Naruto was also at the training grounds where she was doing some personal and supplemental training, she quickly turned a light shade of red and ducked behind a post.
"Hinata? What are you doing here?" asked Naruto.
"N-nothing, I-I j-just came here t-to train, Naruto" she stuttered out. "W-what are y-you doing here?"
"'I've been here training" Naruto said.
"Oh, w-well I c-can go to another t-training ground" said the shy girl.
"No, that is alright. It would actually be nice to have some company for once" said Naruto. This in turn turned Hinata a slightly darker shade of red. A few moments later, Naruto dropped his head as the prospect of his fight came back to his mind. "Hey Hinata, that Neji guy, he's your cousin, right?"
"Y-yes" said Hinata.
"Is he…Is he strong?" asked Naruto.
"Y-yeah" replied Hinata, Naruto's spirits were deflated even further. "But I b-believe you c-can beat h-him."
"Haha, yeah because I am really strong!" replied Naruto, a long awkward pause soon followed.
'And he's finally cracked'thought Kurama.
"Well N-naruto, when you cheered for me, I felt like I-I had become stronger" Hinata said, the stuttering slowly working its way out of her voice. "I had managed to defeat a strong opponent and I started to like myself a little more. It was t-thanks to you that I felt like I was able to change."
"Ahh, thanks to me?" Naruto said, still unsure. "Yeah, I'm very influential."
Another awkward silence followed. "Hinata? Do you really think that?" Naruto asked. "I may appear strong to you, but that's just an act. I act all tough, because I always keep failing."
"That's not true!" Hinata burst out, surprising herself, Naruto, and even the Fox. "Even when you fail, you always manage to get back up and become stronger…In my eyes, you are a proud failure. W-when I-I look at y-you, I g-get an intense feeling i-in my h-heart. Because you fail, you have the strength to get back up. I believe that is true strength. Because of that, you are incredibly strong, Naruto."
"Wow! Thanks Hinata!" Naruto said, feeling revitalized. "Earlier, I was feeling uncharacteristically depressed, but now, I am feeling much better!"
Naruto then looked straight at Hinata, and said to her "You know, I always thought you were a plain-looking, dark weirdo." Hinata's spirits dropped. "But you know, there is something about you that I really like."
This picked her up, even more than she had been brought down. She was about to say something, but Naruto opening his oblivious mouth first. "So what have you been working on these past few weeks?"
'Yep, he's an idiot' thought Kurama, dropping his head as Naruto had just ruined the moment.
"W-well, my father has been training with me. But, I-I just can't seem to g-get the technique down" Hinata admitted.
"Well why not?" Naruto said.
"I-I just d-don't want to hurt anyone" Hinata said, receding back into her shell. "He says that I'm too kind and gentle. U-unfortunately, t-those aren't traits looked h-highly upon in m-my family."
"Huh? What do you mean by that?" asked Naruto. "That's one of the best things about you."
"I-it i-is?" she said, turning a deeper shade of red than before.
"Yeah, I mean it's what drives you to be strong. I know you're strong and you proved it after your fight with that sand guy. Because you're kind, you don't want to let anyone down" explained Naruto.
"But for this technique, I need to practice on someone and I d-don't want to hurt them if I am just training" Hinata said. Kurama was blinded even worse by a brighter flash of light as Naruto got another idea, and not an idiotic one.
"Please tell me this isn't going to be a normal occurrence" he complained.
"Well, If you are worried about hurting someone, just use it on me. I've probably taken a worse beating" Naruto said.
"B-but, There is no way I could hurt you!" Hinata cried out.
"Ehh, that's not what I mean" Naruto said. He created a shadow clone next to him. "Just use your technique on my shadow clone."
Hinata took a look at the clone with her Byakugan. Surprisingly, the chakra systems in the clone and the real Naurto were identical. "A-are you s-sure I won't hurt you?"
Naruto grinned. "Nope" he said. Naruto took out a kunai and threw it at the shadow clone's chest, much to the clone's displeasure, striking it and causing it to fall over, horrifying Hinata. The clone disappeared in a cloud of smoke. "See…I'm just fine. Didn't feel a thing."
"A-alright…" Hinata said. Naruto was actually willing to help her again and if he said it was alright to use his clones like this, she would so it as long as he wasn't getting hurt. Hinata tested the clone off by closing a few tenketsu points on the clone's arm. Its chakra system reacted the same way and the clone remained. After another close inspection, Hinata began her technique on the clone "Gentle Fist: Eight-trigrams, Thirty-two palms." Only a few seconds later, the clone collapsed and Naruto was in awe at Hinata's speed and technique. She had actually put the full chakra bursts into the technique now that she was assured that she wouldn't be hurting anyone. While she was initially unsure about using Naruto like this, he encouraged her to do so in that it would greatly help her.
"Hinata! What are you doing?" Hiashi asked approaching the training ground. "And why are you with him? You should be focusing your time on training for the final matches!" Naruto was depressed; he was actually having a good time helping Hinata out.
"H-he was h-helping me train" Hinata said.
"Huh?" Hiashi asked, not quite sure of what she was saying.
"He was letting me use his shadow clones to practice the eight trigrams on" she said.
"Shadow clones?" Hiashi asked, looking at Naruto. Naruto just smiled and created a shadow clone. Hiashi took a closer look at it with his Byakugan. Much to his surprise, Naruto had indeed created a shadow clone. Hiashi found himself actually impressed that the boy could use such a high level technique. "Alrgiht, then show me what you were doing."
Hinata turned to the clone. "Sorry for this, N-naruto" She said.
"It's okay Hinata. Like I said, it's just a clone and it doesn't bother me" Naruto assured.
"O-okay. Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams, Thirty-two palms!" she said, proceeding into her attack. After all was said and done, Hiahsi was genuinely impressed. She had managed to hit 22 out of the 32 tenketsu, after only an hour or two of actually using chakra bursts, showing that her attack was actually rather effective even after only beginning to learn it.
Hiashi thought on this for a moment. "Naruto, aren't you supposed to be training as well?" he asked.
"Yeah, but I can take some time off to help Hinata. Besides, Kakashi-sensei abandoned me for Sasuke, the closet perv got knocked out by Pervy Sage, and Pervy Sage had to attend to some business." Hiashi raised an eyebrow at what Naruto was saying.
"Pervy Sage?" questioned Hiashi.
"Yeah. He's actually a strong ninja, but in reality, he's just a big pervert. He did teach me this cool summoning jutsu, want to see?" said Naruto. Hiashi wanted to see what summoning jutsu Naruto was talking about. "Summoning Jutsu!" After a flash of smoke, Gamakichi appeared and asked for a snack. Thankfully, Jiraiya had also taught Naruto a storage jutsu to store snacks for toads.
"I-it talks?!" Hinata stuttered before passing out at the sight of a talking toad. Hiashi looked at her and let out a sigh.
'A Toad summon. I thought there could only be one toad summoned per generation. Does that mean Master Jiraiya is here and he chose him?' thought Hiashi.
"Tell me, this 'Pervy Sage'" Hiashi had a hard time getting those last two words out. "By any chance is his name Jiraiya?"
"Oh, Jiraiya?" Naruto responded. "Yeah, that's him. He also taught me another technique, but that is still being worked on."
"Hmm…this is interesting. So you have been taken by Jiraiya-sensei as a student and he has given you the Toad summoning scroll. What is this other technique you are talking about?" thought Hiashi. He remembered what Kurenai said to him about the preliminaries and Naruto being able to bring Hinata out of her shell. Surprisingly, he found himself slightly interested in Naruto and wanted to see what the boy could do, even if the match was against his own nephew. At the same time, Naruto had given him another opportunity to improve Hinata's skills.
"Naruto, could I ask something of you?" asked Hiashi.
"Sure, what is it?" asked Naruto.
"I want you to train with Hinata for a few hours in the afternoons and help her perfect her technique. Your shadow clones have proven a valuable method for her to practice that technique" Hiashi said. At this time, Hinata was waking up and heard their little conversation.
"Yeah, I would be glad to help her out" Naruto replied.
'I-I'm going t-to be with Naruto every d-day u-until the f-finals?' Hinata thought, passing out again. Hiashi then picked her up and left.
"Naruto, please come by the Hyuga compound tomorrow at 2:00pm" he instructed, leaving with his unconscious daughter. The next thing that he would need to fix with her was that fainting problem.
A/N: Alright, so there are multiple ways that Hiashi could have been looked at based on what I have seen. For my story, Hiashi will be seen as supportive of his daughter and also rather supportive of Naruto. And if you didn't catch it, yes he referred to Jiraiya as -sensei. Now, in the future, Hiashi won't be behind the problems the Hyuga clan causes for Naruto and Hinata, but there will still be plenty of drama between the clan and the two young ninja. I plan to post something latter on that better describes my take on the Hyuga clan.